3 Things We Have to Accept About Life After Nolan's Batman

#1. Nolan's Next Movie

According to Fandango, tickets for the The Dark Knight Rises made up over 91 percent of all ticket sales that took place yesterday (7/19/12), and it is already outpacing The Avengers in terms of advanced ticket sales. There's not a doubt in anyone's mind that this movie is going to make a lot of, if not all of, the money. And that's terrific news.

I don't want to sound like too much of a fanboy (but I just wrote 1,200 words about Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, so I'm assuming that ship has sailed at this point), but Christopher Nolan is one of the most exciting and inventive directors working today. He may not be my favorite current director, but he certainly knows how to make huge and impressive blockbusters that are also clever and thought-provoking, like Inception, plus smaller, more intimate films that are equally clever and thought-provoking, like Memento. He's got great sensibilities.

Meanwhile, he's ALSO got lots of freedom, because in Hollywood, money = freedom. Once the Dark Knight trilogy makes more money than any other trilogy in the history of trilogies, Nolan will have all of the freedom in the world. He couldn't have made Inception if the studios didn't completely trust him to deliver, and now he'll have even more trust after The Dark Knight Rises succeeds, which it clearly will. How exciting is that? The guy who will have unlimited budgets and trust to make movies isn't Michael Bay or Roland Emmerich, but Christopher Nolan! The guy who made Memento and Following!

Nolan's next movie isn't even announced yet and I'm already excited about it, because I can look at his IMDb credits and see that he hasn't made a bad film. The last non-Batman film he made was about dreams, and the creative process, and spinning tops, I think, and it was one of the most exciting action movies of the last 20 years. He's in a position where literally every studio will open up their wallets to fund any idea he has, and every single A-list actor will want to work with him.

At this point, Nolan represents the ideal director: someone who can make big-budget, crowd-pleasing action movies for the thinking man. Even though Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy is ending, that doesn't mean that Nolan, as a symbol, is going away. He'll still be out there, making the movies we're too afraid (or dumb!) to make, and fighting the creative fights that need to be fought. He'll make the movies that other directors can't, because they're merely "people," and he is Nolan. He'll be the director we need, not the director we deserve.

And he'll make some really kickass films.

(The Prestige 2? A spinoff sequel starring David Bowie as Tesla and Joseph Gordon Levitt as Edison? I'm just spit-balling here.)

Daniel O'Brien is Cracked.com's senior writer (ladies), and he hasn't washed his underwear since The Dark Knight Rises was announced (people sitting around him in the movie theater). Follow him on Twitter to find out about spontaneous San Diego Cracked meet-ups.